Tournament: Judgement Day 7

So I'm back and recovered from a day of 6th edition 40k action at the annual Judgement Day tournament. This 750 point tournament is hosted by the Western Suburbs Wargaming Association, and this was the 7th year of its operation.

I had just finished painting this army the night before. A bunch of rats from the Warhammer box set painted up as Horrors and Nurglings, lead by the big man Kai-rat Fatecheeser himself. The display board was a plate I bought from a $2 store on the way home from work the night before, covered with air-drying clay, and spray painted and dry brushed in the morning. Here's the list:

• Fatecheeser
• 6 Horrors with bolt and icon
• 5 Horrors with bolt
• 5 Horrors with bolt
• 4 Nurglings
• 4 Nurglings

40k Squeaky Daemons

Kai-Rat Fatecheeser!

I'm going to the Judgement Day 7 tournament on August 4th, less than three weeks from today. They are going to be running 6th edition, of which I have not even seen the rulebook. I'm not going to buy the big rule book (its $120 is Australia!) so I pretty much will have to learn the rules from the internet. That should be fun.

However in order to keep myself on my toes I have decided to build a new army for the event. Its a stupid idea I have been playing with in my head for a while - building a budget Chaos Daemons army using only the skaven models from the Isle of Dread box. My original idea was to model Horrors by taking a basic skaven model and replacing the hand weapons with sculpted flames, so that each rat's hand appears engulfed in fire. The flames would be painted blue/green/yellow to look magicky.

The next logical step is to use the Rat Ogre models as Daemon Princes. Also with their hand on fire to represent the good old Bolt of Change. I had done a couple of test scupts of fire when I was thinking of building a fire themed Ork army, with Wierdboys on fire and Lobbas with flaming ammunition. So I knew it was possible.

I've got a set of moon-themed resin bases that I won at Judgement Day 5, which I am going to use mainly because I have all the right base sizes. My idea in painting them is to keep the colours drab, paint the flames and eyes bright, then have a have a stab at object source lighting. Might not be a good idea to do that in the next three weeks though! I guess they will be lucky to get three colours in the time available.

I have a few more ideas to round out the army. I have some Giant Rats that will work beautifully as Nurgling bases. The LotR Warg models will make a perfect Flesh Hound - everyone needs something to deal with the ubiquitous Grey Knights right? Finally the skaven two-rat special weapons teams should be convertable into Flamers with a little thought.

Thank the lord that Judgement Day aren't requiring list submission before the even. I have a heap of list ideas though I need to settle soon if I am to make sure that everything is painted. I'll leave you for now with the two examples of lists I am thinking of taking:

Squeaky Daemons (750)
Herald of Tzeentch - We are Legion, Master of Sorcery, Bolt of Tzeentch (95)
8 Horrors - Bolt of Change, Changeling (151)
5 Horrors - Bolt of Change (95)
5 Horrors - Bolt of Change (95)
8 Nurglings (104)
Daemon Prince - Mark of Tzeentch, Daemonic Flight, Master of Sorcery, Bolt of Tzeentch (210)

Squeaky Daemons with Cheese (749)
Fateweaver (333)
5 Horrors - Bolt of Change (95)
5 Horrors - Bolt of Change (95)
5 Horrors - Bolt of Change (95)
8 Flesh Hounds - Fury of Khorne (130)

Brief Tournament Report: Arcanacon 2012

For those that don't know, Arc is a huge 40k tournament in Melbourne, with 150 spots available this year - which is a reduction on previous years! Its the largest and longest running tournament in the southern hemisphere, and very difficult to get a ticket for as they sell out in hours. I was lucky to get my hands on a ticket reserved for Battle Bunker club members - thanks Diffey!

Once again I took my hybrid Tau out to play with the big boys - list is here. There were three Tau players in total, playing relatively similar lists. A new team had taken over the tournament and although there were a few delays and confusions they managed to get us over the line in the end - I don't envy them the task :)

Tournament Scoring: Weighting & Normalisation

It's common in battle point tournaments for a player to receive a score in several categories - usually a subset of battle, comp, painting and sportsmanship. These scores are then added together to provide an overall score.

Comp and Swiss

Like many of you I am a big fan of the idea of win/loss tournaments. The premise behind this scoring methodology is that players shouldn't be penalised for winning close games against highly skilled opponents. In a battle points tournament the luck of the draw is vital, as getting assigned a weak opponent allows you to race ahead in points 20 - 0 or similar.

The win/loss system cares only whether you won or lost - but hang on a sec, that's not entirely true is it? Some kind of points measure is still recorded, for the purpose of determining the next round's pairings using the Swiss system.

A Six-pack of Themed 750pt Lists

There is tournament here in Melbourne called Judgement Day that I have attended for the last three years. It is a unique event on the calendar - five 750 point games in a single day packs in the fun and makes for a great variety of games. The atmosphere among the 60+ attendees is great and I have enjoyed every game played so far.

Each year I have taken a different army: Plague Marines, then Vanilla Marines, then Tau last year. Here are the lists I am considering to take this year. The event is heavily comped, but that is panel comp so you get a fair score for your list, not an unfair score from a losing opponent. So bear in mind I'm trying to make lists that are interesting and fit to a theme, but still competitive.

Adepticon Results: Space Wolf Victory!

For those of you who are interested, the Adepticon 40k championship was won a few hours ago by a Space Wolf player, against an Imperial Guard opponent. Well done Tony Kopah on what must be a sweet victory after a grueling couple of days with 8 games played. This is actually the same guy who won the NOVA open last year, so obviously extremely talented. Two positions in the American ETC team were up for grabs to the top players of this tournament - I wonder if he'll be joining up?

I actually got up at 3AM (down here in Australia) to watch the games broadcast live! Sat down and did some painting whilst watching and listening to the Independent Characters' ustream broadcast. It was fun to be a part of, but in all honesty it was difficult to follow and thus kind of boring. The overhead view was good but next time include the whole table guys! If they could mike up the players then the whole experience would improve immensely, as we could tell what was going on with every roll. As it was it left a lot to be desired. Mike up the players!

The semi finals were Orks vs Wolves and IG vs Nids. Great to see a variety of Codices in the top four - pity that it lead to such a typical final lineup. It was great to watch the speed of these players, there was a two hour time limit and they were racing through their turns - especially the Ork player! There is no way I could play that fast with any semblance of tactical acumen.

Tournament Scoring: The NOVA Method Explained

(Article two in a series on tournament scoring.)

When Mike Brandt ran the NOVA Open tournament last year, he created a revolution in the tournament community. A number of novel concepts were introduced into tournament strategy and scoring:

• Two major winners - Best General and Renaissance Man (33% each of battle, painting and sports)
• 3 simple missions that are not too hard to draw; but...
• All three missions are played every game, with one being primary another secondary and the last tertiary. If you tie the primary mission, the you determine win or loss from the secondary mission and so on.
• Victory points are used instead of kill points, and to resolve ties.
• Once a winner is determined, nothing else matters when determining the overall. There is a battle points score, but it is only used for future pairing offs and determining the Renaissance man.
• Within each bracket of winners, best is paired off with worst. Traditional Swiss format pairs off in a less extreme manner, in an effort to give players "better games". 

Tournament Report: Battle Bunker Crash

I've just got back from a four round, 1500 point tournament - a long and intense day, as each game was 1 hour 50 minutes. I had a great time playing against four challenging opponents and learnt a few new things about Tau in the process. For a first time tournament it was very well run, I had no complaints. Well done Josh and Matt, I want to thank you for an enjoyable day.

The crash was a bit different to other tournaments in Melbourne. Firstly there were no soft scores to determine the winner - there was however a painting score that went towards a separate prize. So I could be a dickhead without having to worry about sports scores, yay! Even more innovatively, we all got to vote on the missions we wanted from a selection of 10 in the days before the tournament. So Boone could complain about the missions, and I didn't hear any complaints.

The Battle Bunker Crash

I'm getting excited about a new tournament coming up on February 13th - the Battle Bunker Crash. It's of course being held at my local store The Battle Bunker, and the price is $30. This includes 4 games at 1500 points (it's going to be a long day) and lunch will be provided as we can crank up the BBQ. It's being organized by Josh, who is a regular club member and a great opponent. Expect favoritism to be shown towards Daemons and Dark Eldar ;)

Interestingly the winner is based solely on Battle Point scores - there is no comp! This is relatively rare in Australia and I am looking forward to pushing my list building and tactical skills to their limit. I usually play balanced lists that don't get punished by comp in my experience. It will be interesting to see what others bring. My only concern is that I dont want to be playing games against unpainted armies - I always make sure that my army is fully painted at tournaments.

Another novel twist is that they are going to provide 8 missions on the day, and the final 4 will be determined by vote. Not something I have heard of before - we will have to wait and see how this pans out.

I am thinking of bringing my Tau out of retirement for this. I've been playing my Crimson Fists recently and having fun, but I suspect that I am more competitive as a Shas'el. Tau are best at low points values as they quickly fill the FOC. I am going to take this opportunity to fill in a few gaps in my Tau collection and take the most vicious optimised list possible - the list is made but I'm not going to publish it until after the event :P Anyone got a spare Piranha or a couple of Broadsides lying around?

Tournament Scoring: An Introduction

To start a series of articles on tournament scoring, I thought I'd get the basics out of the way.

Tournaments are in general won or lost by adding up points from four categories: Battle, Painting, Composition (Comp) and Sportsmanship (Sports). Not all tournaments give scores in every category, although there is always a Battle component. There is a fifth category of Incentives - these are points given out for handing a let in on time.

Battle measures how well a player defeats each opponent they face. Points are given for achieving the primary objective, usually with bonus points for secondary objectives, or how well you win by. This is always an objective score.

Painting actually includes the gamut of hobby skills, from basing and modeling to painting, and can include extras like display boards and props. Scoring is usually based on a number of specified criteria but can also include a subjective component that is judged.

Composition is a handicap score that is designed to encourage soft lists by giving them bonus points. It can be subjective or a list of rules, or a combination of both. This is the most controversial of the scores - a bad Comp system punishes already weak armies and is rife for manipulation.

Sportsmanship covers all sorts of behaviours that effect how enjoyable it is to game with you. Are you polite? Do you know how to play? Do you cheat? Did you bring the necessary equipment? Usually a subjective score from your opponent, but can be a checklist with questions like the above.

Most tournaments have several prizes up for grabs based on these scores. There might be a best painted, best sportsman or best general, comparing scores from a single category. You will also see combinations of scores. Judgement Day (2010) rewarded  best general based on a combination of Battle and Comp, which takes into account your ability as a general despite the army you have taken. Finally there is usually a best overall score that combines all the scores in order to determine a single contestant who has won the tournament.